The University of Warwick has today, Wednesday 18th March 2015, been named as the "Electrical Energy Storage Spoke" of the government and industry funded £1 billion Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC), to co-ordinate a technical community with a shared interest in battery systems.

The Automotive Council has identified electrical energy storage as a key technology for the future of the automotive industry in the UK. WMG, at the University of Warwick, has made significant investments over the last 10 years to build expertise and facilities in the scale-up and evaluation of battery systems. As a result of these investments, and a strong network of academic and industrial partners, The University of Warwick has been identified as the logical location to host the Electrical Energy Storage Spoke for the APC.

As a Spoke, the University will bring together a community of academic and industrial organisations with a focus on automotive electrical energy storage - including battery and supercapacitor technologies, battery management systems, and battery pack integration. This community will inform APC strategy in this field, and will support the APC in developing and delivering these technologies to the market.

The APC was established in 2013, and operates with a Hub & Spoke model. The APC Hub, which is separately located on the University of Warwick campus, provides independent leadership of a national Spoke network that is being created to provide the UK automotive industry with resources and facilities to develop specific strategic technologies for advanced propulsion systems to provide capability and growth in manufacturing, particularly in supply chains. The University of Warwick Spoke will focus on automotive battery systems.

The Spoke network will directly support the aim of the APC, which is to work in partnership with industry to secure and grow over 30,000 UK jobs currently engaged in the research, development and production of vehicle powertrains as the industry transitions to a low carbon future.

‘The global energy storage market will be worth $50 billion by 2020; of this, $21bn will be in transportation. Automotive is well on its way to displacing consumer electronics as the biggest user of energy storage. We are delighted to have been awarded the APC Electrical Energy Storage Spoke as it plays a significant role in bringing together researchers and industry to address the challenges of the growing need to enhance these technologies. Our advanced energy storage facility, which is the only one of its kind in the UK, provides the capability to validate new battery chemistries by enabling the rapid characterisation of battery cells, the ability to test up to 1000 Amps, and to expose batteries to extreme vibration, crush and penetration. “

Professor David Greenwood, Professor of Advanced Propulsion Systems at WMG, leading the Spoke at The University of Warwick said:

“We are delighted to have been named as the APC Electrical Energy Storage Spoke, in recognition of the capabilities and facilities here at WMG and our excellent links with academia and industry. The UK has a strong academic capability in this field, and we already work with an excellent network of collaborators at many of these universities including Cambridge, Oxford, UCL and Southampton. The UK industrial base for supply of battery systems is also developing quickly and I look forward to supporting APC as they help the UK deliver a thriving automotive industry for the future."